In this conversational session, participants will generate and respond to questions on key topics regarding the importance of culturally-responsive practices in our districts, schools, and classrooms. Participants can expect to be an active participant in both posing questions, as well as generating and sharing ideas and culturally-responsive tools with other members of the session. Participants will also leave with a better understanding of how to use NYSED's Culturally-Responsive and Sustaining Framework to enhance their practice.

Audience: General, Grades PK-2, Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Instructional Coaches

Audience Discipline: General, Elementary, English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies

Facilitators: Laura McDaniel Capital Region BOCES, Jamie Wojtowicz Kingsley Monroe 2 BOCES, Jeanette Adams-Price Monroe BOCES, and Brooke Santamont St. Lawrence Lewis BOCES

In this workshop, participants will examine commonalities and differences of disciplinary literacy and engage in collegial dialogue around the Math, ELA, Social Studies and Science practices. Discussion topics will include common language and tools to help educators create an instructional “flow” that will enable their students to make cross-curricular connections across the school day. Participants will be encouraged to share current practices and time will be built in to consider next steps for implementation.

Audience: Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Instructional Coaches, Administrators, Including Content Area Teachers

Audience Discipline: English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies

Presenters: Carri Waloven- CiTi BOCES, Kathryn Daughton- OCM BOCES, Kathy Simpson- Ulster BOCES, and Catherine Coons- NYSED

This professional learning opportunity will draw upon the content of Hochman and Wexler's The Writing Revolution. Participants will initially observe six (6) principles of effective writing instruction and then observe several explicit, sentence-level writing strategies, with multidisciplinary models.

Audience: General, Grades PK-2, Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Instructional Coaches, Administrators

Audience Disciplines: General, Elementary, English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies

Presenters: Kevin Kirkwood - Genesee Valley BOCES, Patrick Whipple - Genesee Valley BOCES, David Coffey - NYSED, and Jessica Schirrmacher Smith - CA BOCES

They Say, I Say authors Birkenstein and Graff aim to demystify argument writing for students by offering a variety of templates and sentence stems that support student writers in integrating others' ideas with their own. Participants will practice using these templates themselves and consider which will work best for their students and assignments. Participants do not need a copy of the book, and no advance reading is required.

Audience: Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Instructional Coaches

Audience Disciplines: English Language Arts, Social Studies

Presenter: Carolyn Cooper- Otsego Northern Catskills BOCES

The origins of strong argument writing lie in strong critical thinking. This session will present interdisciplinary thinking moves as the first step to teaching argument. We'll address how to support students in recognizing the building blocks of effective argument across a range of texts. Participants will leave with ideas for how to incorporate this work into daily instruction to build the habit of argumentation.

Audience: Grades 8-12

Audience Discipline: English Language Arts, Social Studies

Presenters: Kathryn Bailey, Broome-Tioga BOCES, Patricia Walsh, Broome-Tioga BOCES, and Jaime Mendelis, Broome-Tioga BOCES

“Kids like to argue. They are good at it, and they know it.” - J. Burnash

In this session, teachers will explore a lesson structure known as “Argument Friday” in which students consider their personal feelings about a topic, acknowledge the nature of an argument, and get passionate; and then are challenged to channel their emotions through an explicit and scaffolded process to produce a thoughtful, evidence-based argument essay. Throughout this exploration, teachers will be given tools and samples to support their own development of methodical writing instruction that is a good fit for all students.

Audience: Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Instructional Coaches, Special Education (7-12)

Audience Discipline: English Language Arts, Social Studies, Special Education Self-Contained, Co-teachers, and Consultants

Presenters: Jodi Burnash: Cayuga-Onondaga and Robert Fetter: Erie 2-Chautauqua Cattaraugus